The Apparition Movie Review

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Does Ashley Greene need a new agent? It's hard to say. On the one hand, of her five widely released movies, four are among the biggest blockbusters of the last decade. On the other hand, those four were the Twilight movies. The fifth is The Apparition, a truly terrible horror movie that earned only $7 million worldwide.

Ashley Greene plays Kelly, an attractive young woman who lives with her boyfriend Ben (Sebastian Stan) in a nice suburban house in a nice suburban neighborhood. You know what that means. One of their pals (Tom Felton) has accidentally unleashed a horrific supernatural presence that is slowly consuming their home. And in typical fashion, even after the first several supernatural incidents, Kelly and Ben play dumb and remain in the house.

I note that Kelly is an attractive young woman for one reason, and that's because the only selling point of the movie is Ashley Greene running around in her underwear. Sad, but true.

The Apparition doesn't work because it brings nothing new to the table in either plot or execution. The plot can be forgiven - as cliché as the haunted house story is, movies such as Insidious prove that haunted house stories can still be done to great effect when done right. But that brings us to the execution piece. First time writer/director Todd Lincoln's film is straight-laced and bland from start to finish. The scary moments aren't scary, the suspenseful sequences nonexistent.

I'm also still not sure what the apparition is or what it wants. Thankfully Todd Lincoln decided to throw a creepy Ring-like girl into the film for good measure. I say that with sarcasm.

There have been far worse horror movies made, even this year (see, or don't: The Devil Inside), but The Apparition is lazy storytelling at its worse. There is nothing new or remarkable or even memorable about the film, except for the awful and nonsensical climax. As we learn, even Costco can't keep you safe.